Theatre review: The Oresteia

By now I think we can take it as read that Simon Stone's adaptations of classic texts will actually be devised riffs vaguely inspired by a general theme, that share little with the original other than the title. I've had some very different responses to them over the years, and I suspect I like them in inverse proportion to how well I know the classic versions. And regular readers of this blog will both recall that I know Aeschylus' version of The Oresteia very well. Stone's version opens in 2016, in Lizzie Clachan's revolving glass house, where a privileged family are preparing for a 21st birthday party for their twin daughters. We know they're privileged because Christopher (David Morrissey) is genuinely annoyed with his cousin Jerome (John Macmillan) for buying several cases of Bollinger champagne for the party. Because it's too cheap.

Theatre review: Guess How Much I Love You?

The Royal Court opens its seventieth anniversary year with one of its most notorious memes, although I'm not sure I would even count Luke Norris' Guess How Much I Love You Question Mark as part of that tradition, and not just because it doesn't take place in the Upstairs Theatre: The venue has traditionally used dead babies for shock value, but Norris' story takes the possibility of a baby dying and goes somewhere a lot more human and moving. It opens with an unnamed couple halfway through a pregnancy scan, playing Twenty Questions and discussing baby names, partly to distract them from the fact that the sonographer left them abruptly to get a second opinion, and has been gone for an unusually long time. We next meet Her (Rosie Sheehy) and Him (Robert Aramayo) during a sleepless night, after they've received a devastating diagnosis.

Theatre review: The Brightening Air

Playwright and director Conor McPherson recently received a massive tax bill - at least that's the most obvious explanation for the frantic flurry of activity he's got planned for this year, when he'll be writing new shows, directing some of his old ones and, to start with, doing both: His new play The Brightening Air gets its debut production at the Old Vic, with the playwright himself directing and, to be honest, not doing much to dissuade me from my general rule of thumb that this is A Bad Idea. With nods to Chekhov that are acknowledged when one character jokingly refers to another by a Russian patronymic, the play sees a family reunite a few times at a remote family home - in this case a dilapidated farmhouse in Ireland. Middle child Stephen (Brian Gleeson) lives there with his Nonspecifically Neurodivergent little sister Billie (Rosie Sheehy,) who finds as much comfort in the familiar place as she does in discussing her wide range of fixations.

Theatre review: An Interrogation

Cameron (Jamie Ballard) is the founder and CEO of a successful consultancy firm with government contacts; he's got a ruthless reputation tempered with charity work, and he spends most weekends looking after his aging mother. But police officer Ruth (Rosie Sheehy) is pretty convinced his mild image is distracting from more than just the large swathes of redundancies his company has been responsible for: She also believes that he kidnapped and murdered one of his employees a few months back. Now another young woman is missing, and if it's the work of the same person she might have been kept alive for up to 72 hours. The Reading police are under pressure to find the second victim while she's still alive, and with hours to go Ruth has been given the chance to try out her hunch: With her boss watching from a nearby room, she'll interview Cameron alone.

Theatre review: Machinal

Richard Jones' production of Machinal was originally seen at the Theatre Royal Bath, something that's immediately apparent as Hyemi Shin's set clearly originates somewhere much smaller than the Old Vic: The sickly yellow wedge is very appropriate for conveying the claustrophobia of the story, a bit less ideal for the sightlines as it gets lost somewhere in the middle of the huge darkened stage, squeezed behind a pillar from where we were sitting*. Sophie Treadwell's 1928 play is considered a masterpiece of expressionism, something that's referenced in particular in the opening scenes as a young woman (Rosie Sheehy) travels on a packed New York subway train to her office, where her coworkers fuss and gossip about her being late. Adam Silverman's lighting throws their shadows onto the back walls to loom ominously over her.

Stage-to-screen review: All's Well That Ends Well(RSC / Sky Arts)

Last year, like this year, a couple of my planned theatre trips outside of That London got scuppered by rail strikes; one of them was Blanche McIntyre's production of All's Well That Ends Well at the RSC. It was a particular shame because McIntyre has been an interesting director of some of the more obscure, more problematic Shakespeare plays, and you don't get many that fit both descriptions better than this one. Rarely performed (arguably with good reason,) it was even included in the original trio of Problem Plays whose tone made them difficult to categorise (like Measure for Measure, which McIntyre's also tackled before, this one got lumped in with the Comedies by the First Folio.) The fact that its lead romantic couple are actually meant to lack any hint of sexual chemistry is the least of the issues which has kept it on the expanded list of plays with seriously problematic elements for a modern audience.

Theatre review: Romeo and Julie

It's 2023 but shows that I originally had tickets to see in 2020 are still making their belated returns. Callum Scott Howells had already been slated to appear in Gary Owen's Romeo and Julie then, but in the intervening time his appearance in It's A Sin and subsequent status as The Gay Internet's Official Fantasy Boyfriend of 2021 means he brings some added star power now the show finally premieres. It was worth the wait to get the show on with Howells in place: He plays Romeo (pronounced Romeo, but usually referred to as Romy,) an 18-year-old single dad who can't even rely on his alcoholic mum Barb (Catrin Aaron) for help babysitting his daughter. Like Owen's previous plays this takes place in the impoverished Cardiff suburb of Splott, but presumably on its edges: Julie (Rosie Sheehy) only lives a couple of streets away, but has led a much easier life so far.

Theatre review: Richard III (RSC / RST)

I don't think it's a question of if, or even when someone does an overtly Boris Johnson-themed production of Richard III, it's surely only a matter of who gets there first: In Shakespeare's version of history, Richard sees ultimate power as his birthright; sows chaos then sells himself as the only person who can fix it; acquires and discards wives for political expediency; makes allies of dodgy yes-men; goes so far even they desert him and he replaces them with even dodgier ones; and of course immediately finds himself dangerously out of his depth when he eventually gets the top job. It's a bit #TooSoon for that very specific production of course, so in the meantime we get the culmination of the RSC's Wars of the Roses trilogy. Designer Stephen Brimson Lewis stays on as do many of the central cast, but outgoing Artistic Director Gregory Doran has returned from compassionate leave to take over directing duties from Owen Horsley.

Theatre review: Oleanna

David Mamet's most recent foray into gender politics provided the definitive unflushable theatrical turd of 2019, so the return of his much-more lauded 1992 play about the battle of the sexes inevitably raises the question of how well its arguments will have aged. After all, Mamet isn't exactly best-known for his great roles for women, and although Oleanna is largely thought of as one of his better plays it was met with as much controversy as it was praise, for reasons that become apparent in the final moments. I haven't seen the play before, so the transfer of Lucy Bailey's production from Bath to the Arts Theatre is an opportunity to fix that: Jonathan Slinger is John, a University lecturer in... I think maybe Philosophy, although his love of waffling self-importantly means it's often anyone's guess what he's actually talking about. It's no wonder his student Carol (Rosie Sheehy) seems so confused. Set entirely in John's office, Oleanna opens with Carol arriving for an unscheduled meeting.

Theatre review: King John (RSC / Swan)

In a theatrical landscape experimenting excitedly with gender-flipped, gender-blind and gender-neutral casting, it's good for a company to find its own niche, although the RSC's take seems to be an eccentric one: Casting women in male title roles, but largely going with the ones male actors weren't in any particular hurry to play in the first place. So a couple of years ago there was a female Cymbeline, and now the unloved - both in-universe and within the canon - King John, as Rosie Sheehy takes the nominal lead in Eleanor Rhode's production. John - the gender-flipped characters are largely given dresses in Max Johns' design but the pronouns stick to what Shakespeare wrote - has inherited the throne from his much more popular brother Richard the Lionheart, along with the usual convoluted politics with England and France fighting over claims to each other's kingdom.

Theatre review: The Hairy Ape

After a year or so in the round, the Old Vic has returned to its traditional proscenium arch configuration, but in every other respect the second show in the season continues new boss Matthew Warchus' efforts to distance himself from the heritage style of his predecessor's tenure. This time Warchus has looked down the road to the Young Vic for one of its regular artists - one I've had trouble warming to in the past. Director Richard Jones brings his cartoon-like style to Eugene O'Neill, with Bertie Carvel bulking up to create another new look as The Hairy Ape. Carvel plays Yank, the de facto leader of a team of workers stoking the fires below decks on a cruise ship.They sweat and get filthy in the dark to keep the engine going while above them the wealthy passengers enjoy the view, rarely giving them a thought.